Lord of the Gonzos (an excerpt)

http://harlequinblog.com/2011/02/gambling-in-regency-england/

What doth it profit a man, if he shits all over his own habitat, exterminates everything around him but himself, and ends up being the king of nothing? I suppose there is the solace in knowing that you were number one. Yes that’s it. That is what the last being on the planet Earth thought, perhaps, as he wandered about his giant mansion overlooking the coast of Bermuda.


"I am the fittest being. I have survived!" he thought as he toasted champagne to himself.

Yes, he and the other 100 mega-elites, as they had been come to be known, had made a friendly wager one fine day while holding a little yard party on one of the lavish estates of Lord Chambers Fartleroy, who loved lawn gatherings, wild discussions about creation and destruction, God, man, and the meaning of it all, and the weather.

“The meaning is to not to have the most stuff. No - the real meaning is to be the last one standing. God or no God. If there is a God, then he has designed this game for us to be ruthless. I mean, just read what he had his Children of Israel doing to those other tribes. We’re talking wholesale annihilation.” Fartleroy examined the ice-cubes in his top-shelf glass of scotch. He continued, “This game has high stakes. And for you atheistically inclined, we’re talking about a cold Universe without meaning, and the only thing we know is to try to survive, for no reason whatsoever.” He killed the rest of the scotch, then tipped the glass back to get one of the ice-cubes into his mouth. “So, I propose some sport. Since there is most likely going to be chaos soon anyway, we play a game. Whosoever is left standing last wins.”

J. Preston Organ, the media magnate and child porn connoisseur, wondered to the crowd: “I say, are you speaking of the annihilation of the 8 billion inhabitants currently residing on the planet? I do say, that is a fairly tall order, and of dubious ethical nature. I see no viable business advantage from this proposition.”

“Business, what is business? Just a way to slowly kill people with your poisonous products anyway. Gentlemen, we have amassed the fortunes of this globe to the point where we 100 own 99 percent of it’s assets. The rest might as well be bugs. And what is the point anyway?” Those are the words that issued forth from the mouth of Cooper L. Sykes, the aerospace and plastics baron with a penchant for extreme sports, gambling and “high class” women of the oldest profession.

“What saith you, Padre?” asked Gill Bates, the sniveling trillionaire eugenicist tech guru.

Everyone turned and looked at the man wearing papal garb: Pope Hilarius II. “Well, you know what I say, 'If it’s God’s will, then He will allow us to do it. If not, He will stop us.'”

Off to the side, Ray Kurtze-Wales, the leading technocrat, futurist and all around cynic who loathed the entire lot, thought to himself: I don’t believe in God…yet. I will become God, and win this stupid bet.

The rest is the future of history…